Maldonado 15th after win

Pastor Maldonado finished 15th in the championship which is the lowest ever finishing position for a driver who won a round, with the exception of Michael Schumacher in 1997.

Schumacher won five races and scored enough points to be classified second overall but was excluded after deliberately colliding with Jacques Villeneuve in the final race.

Previous drivers who finished outside the top ten in the championship in years they won races include the following:

Jimmy Bryan finished 13th in 1958 after winning the Indianapolis 500 – he didn’t start any other rounds

Jean-Pierre Jabouille finished 13th in 1979 after scoring Renault’s first win at Dijon, but not scoring in any other rounds

Giancarlo Fisichella was 12th in 2003 after winning the Brazilian Grand Prix and only scoring points on one other occasion

Michele Alboreto did the same in 1983, winning in Detroit

Jean-Pierre Beltoise won the 1972 Monaco Grand Prix but did not score in any other round and ended the year 11th

Jim Clark was killed after winning the first round of the 1968 world championship and was also placed 11th at the end of the year

NB. Does not include drivers who won races as part of shared drives when this was permitted by the rules.

More 2012 season statistics

Sebastian Vettel is the first driver to win the world championship without scoring a victory in Europe. His five wins this year came in Bahrain, Singapore, Japan, Korea and India.

For the first time since 1969, no Italian driver started a race during the entire season.

Kimi Raikkonen has now won races for three different teams: McLaren (nine), Ferrari (nine) and Lotus (one). Only 14 drivers have won races for three or more different constructors, including Alonso (Ferrari, McLaren and Renault) and Button (Honda, Brawn – who were previously Honda – and McLaren).

Raikkonen came within one lap of completing every lap of the season. The only driver to do this was Schumacher who completed all 1,090 laps in 17 races in 2002. Raikkonen did 1,191 in 20 races this year.

Heikki Kovalainen set a new record for most consecutive starts without scoring a point. He has started 60 races in a row without scoring a point, one more than Piercarlo Ghinzani’s 59-race streak from the 1984 British Grand Prix to the end of the 1989 season.

Ghinzani failed to qualify on 22 occasions in that time and Kovalainen did not start at Spain in 2010 (none of which are included in their tallies). Kovalainen’s last points finish was seventh for McLaren at Singapore in 2009.

Ferrari failed to set a fastest lap during the season for the first time since 1994.

People always go on about how closely fought this year was, when in fact… it wasn’t THAT good. In 2010 there were 4 drivers at the last race who could have won (almost 5) and the title was one with almost 30 fewer points. With those top 5 drivers being split by far fewer points. People just tend to forget this as the racing that went with it wasn’t as dramatic.

Granted more teams and drivers won in 2012, but both Williams and Mercedes were a constant story of never fulfilling potential, same with McLaren really.

Chronometrically, that is to say without taking into account mechanical penalties (e.g. gearbox) and fuel faux pas, Lewis outqualified Jenson more in 2012 (17) than Jenson did Lewis in 2010, 2011 and 2012 combined (14).

One of my favorite statistics is that the winning driver’s teammate failed to score a single point in eleven races. In comparison: this happened only three times last season. But this falls one short of the record: in 1993, the winner’s teammate didn’t score in twelve races.

Somewhere during the second lap of the USA GP, Michael Schumacher took over the record for most kilometres raced. With 80,902, he took over the record from Rubens Barrichello with 80,607 kilometres (thatâ€™s about twice Earthâ€™s equator).

In Belgium, no German driver started the race from the top 9. That was the first time this has happened since the 2003 Japanese GP: in that race, Heidfeld started from only 11th. Frentzen, Michael and Ralf Schumacher started from 12th, 14th and 19th respectively.

The Brazilian GP was Renaultâ€™s 500th Grand Prix. But unfortunately no Renault-powered car finished in the top three, just like Ford-Cosworthâ€™s 500th GP (Australia 2001) and Ferrariâ€™s 500th GP (Britain 1992).

The championship was mathematically decided when the driver in sixth place (Vettel himself) crossed the finish line. That is the highest position in which the championship was decided in history.

With Hamilton moving to Mercedes next year, Mercedes will maintain their record of starting every race with a World Champion in their line-up.

He did in fact finish 8th in the race where he won his 6th, but I’m talking about mathematically decided: as soon as Barrichello won the last race of 2003, there was no mathematical chance for Raikkonen to win the title. Therefore the race was decided when the driver in 1st place crossed the finish line.

For the second question: for instance the Brazil GP. Button won the race, but his teammate Hamilton failed to score a point. This happened eleven times.

@andae23 Great stats as usual, was also confused by the highest position and didn’t find any clear alternative except lowest point score but probably not true due to previous point system. Maybe lowest finishing driver would suit best ?

Anyway, great year of stat from you, always had nice addition to Keith article in the matter

That’s a startling way to consider Michael’s career, that he set off all those years ago and has raced around the world twice since. Even with some fairly long stretches at the wheel of those early 2000’s Ferraris it’s still an interesting way to spend a life..

Here’s an intriguing fact: Out of all the race winners this season, Hamilton is the only driver NOT to have won a race the BBC have shown live, coupled with this fact here are his results in the races the Beeb have shown live:

It’s gets even more intriguing & funny from here, that’s all of Hamilton’s DNFs from this season covered. Coincidence? Too fanatical to say it isn’t, looks like the Beeb have been Lewis’ cryptonite this season.

I think Vettel started 23rd with an
HRT behind him, everybody in the media seem to miss that
(either that or I’m just plain wrong – If I’m end up being right though would Abu Dhabi be the “most common mistake by everybody on the media?

I believed a very important statistic of the year that somehow nobody has mentioned is that this 4 year drought since 2008 is the longest period that any of the big 3 FERRARI / MCLAREN / WILLIAMS has failed to win a title. I could add Lotus to that but since this current Lotus team is actually the “enstone team” and in its previous guises has already upset the others I did not.